Our Movement’s Manifesto: Accelerate Community-Led Climate Action
Our Movement’s Manifesto: Accelerate Community-Led Climate Action
Scotland will go to the polls on 7 May to elect a new Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. What does the Community Transport movement need from our future MSPs and the next Scottish Government over the next five years?
Our Manifesto – Our Communities, Our Transport – sets out exactly that. And in a series of blogs in the run-up to polling day, I’m breaking down our 9 policy asks of the political parties and their candidates as we seek to inform and influence their policies and positions.
Following my first and second blogs, last up is our third and final priority – Accelerate Community-Led Climate Action.
This priority is all about the role of Community Transport in tackling climate change and supporting Scotland’s Just Transition to net zero, which has been a major focus of CTA’s work since we published Act Local back in 2023.
CTA is an active member of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland (SCCS) and Transform Scotland. These coalitions help us to amplify the voice of Community Transport, influence wider policymaking and join forces with other sectors. SCCS has produced a Blueprint for Climate Action in the next Scottish Parliament, which includes key Community Transport asks featured in our own Manifesto.
We’re calling on MSPs and the next Scottish Government to accelerate community-led climate action by:
1. Expand community-owned sustainable transport
Transport is Scotland’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. We need to make major reductions to stop the worst effects of climate change, but also to reap the rewards for our health and happiness of cleaner air and safer streets.
Community Transport empowers people to make more active and sustainable travel choices. Community-owned buses, car clubs and e-bike hire are helping many Scots to drive less or even live well without owning car. Nearly two-thirds of CTA members see climate action as an integral part of their mission.
Mike Callaghan has been running a thriving local community car club in Renfrewshire for years. He told us that “the benefits of community-owned
shared transport like ours are massive and key to a Just Transition”, which leaves no one and no community behind.
His work at LEAP Car Club in Lochwinnoch and Linwood “reduces private car ownership and usage, cuts tailpipe emissions, increases active travel, saves users money, increases connectivity, reduces social isolation and makes zero-emission transport accessible to more people.” This couldn’t be more important in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.
We need to learn from and replicate this success in more villages and towns up and down the country, because the benefits, he says, go well beyond the environment. “Greater investment into the sector can only lead to healthier, happier communities across Scotland,” he says.
We’re calling for the next Scottish Government to expand community-owned sustainable transport options in every community in Scotland, particularly where larger commercial bus or car club operators will not go. Local people are more likely to design sustainable transport options which really meet local needs.
We want to see a more locally led approach which invests in more community-owned projects. In the last few years, we’ve advised and guided the growth of more of these kinds of projects than ever before, with big benefits for people, place and planet, but there’s still so much more potential out there.
With a little bit of funding from national or local government, and a little bit of support from CTA (or our friends like CoMoUK), how about a community-owned car club on your doorstep?
2. Invest in Community Transport’s transition to zero-emission fleets
Scotland’s Community Transport movement has been making big strides in its transition to zero-emission fleets in recent years. There are more than 900 vehicles in Scotland’s Community Transport fleet and 18% of those vehicles are now electric.
However, for many of our members, especially the smallest operators, the higher costs of Electric Vehicles (EVs) are prohibitive. A lack of funding and unaffordability are cited as preventing 53% of Community Transport operators from switching to EVs. For 29%, the key barrier is a lack of local charging infrastructure.
We’re calling for the next Scottish Government to invest in Community Transport’s transition to zero-emission fleets and develop Scotland’s EV charging network to meet the needs of local operators, especially those with minibuses and without their own garages, forecourts or premises.
The Plugged-In Communities Grant Fund has made a big impact across the country, enabling dozens of operators to purchase new electric buses, cars and minibuses. We want to see this continued and expanded to meet the scale of the sector’s multi-million-pound capital funding gap and its potential to decarbonise further and faster.
3. Reduce private car use
Cars are responsible for most transport emissions. The Scottish Government promised to reduce private car use in 2020 and set a target of 20% fewer car kilometres by 2030. However, it failed to produce a credible action plan and then dropped the target halfway through.
We will not achieve our net zero targets by electrification alone. If we switch all our vehicles to electric, we’ll still be some way off from ending our contribution to climate change – and, not only that, but we’ll miss out on all the brilliant co-benefits of reducing private car use.
Reducing car use will reduce congestion, noise pollution and air pollution, while increasing road safety. Simply put, fewer cars on our roads means faster bus journeys, better health and fewer accidents.
We’re calling for the next Scottish Government to reduce private car use to tackle congestion, improve road safety and reduce carbon emissions, making our villages, towns and cities cleaner, safer and better places to live, work and play for everyone. Those who will benefit most include children, young people and disabled people who are most at risk from accidents and pollution.
Measures to achieve this will need to involve a mix of so-called ‘carrots’ (incentives to not travel by car, like better buses and cheaper trains) and ‘sticks’ (disincentives to travel by car). We need stronger enforcement of pavement parking bans, reallocation of road space for bus or cycle lanes and systems for road user charging or congestion charging, which could raise revenue to reinvest in public, shared and community transport.
Be part of our movement for change
You can read my ‘Invest in Community Solutions’ blog here or find out how we can ‘Improve Access to Health & Social Care’ here.
Click here to download our Manifesto for Scotland or here to find out more about how you can use it.
If you’d like to discuss campaigning together, get in touch: david.kelly@ctauk.org